Poll: Clayton Kershaw’s Cy Young Chances

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced Sunday that baseball’s preeminent ace, Clayton Kershaw, will make his long-awaited return to Los Angeles’ rotation against the Marlins on Friday. Before landing on the disabled list in late June with a herniated disc in his back, the left-hander was on track for an all-time great season. In addition to posting a 1.79 ERA in 121 pre-injury innings, Kershaw struck out 10.79 batters and walked a microscopic .67 per nine frames, giving him an incredible 16.11 K/BB ratio. The record for a season is a modest-by-comparison 11.63, a figure the Twins’ Phil Hughes put up in 2014.

Kershaw, 28, was clearly the best pitcher in the majors through the end of June and looked poised to ultimately collect his fourth National League Cy Young Award at the conclusion of the season. Now, despite his brilliance this year, the time Kershaw has missed makes racking up any personal hardware look like a long shot. It’s debatable whether that should be the case, however.

If he stays healthy down the stretch, Kershaw will likely close the regular season in the 150-inning range, which would put him far behind fellow NL Cy Young contenders like Max Scherzer, Noah Syndergaard, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, Jose Fernandez and Madison Bumgarner, among others. Nevertheless, as FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron (an NL Cy Young voter) detailed Friday, Kershaw has easily outperformed the rest of his league’s elite this season. For instance, Hendricks leads qualifying NL starters in ERA (2.12), yet he has allowed 20 more earned runs than Kershaw in only 38 more innings. Thus, voters will have to weigh whether a truncated season of sheer dominance from Kershaw is superior to a full year of excellence from Hendricks or any of the other aforementioned options.

History suggests that voters tend to place significant value on workhorses, evidenced by the fact that Kershaw (198 1/3 innings in 2014) and former Dodgers closer Eric Gagne (82 1/3 in 2003) are the only two NL pitchers to throw fewer than 200 frames in a Cy Young-winning season since 1990. Still, Kershaw will finish 2016 with videogamelike numbers, and both results- and FIP-based WAR indicate that he has been among the most valuable pitchers in the NL despite a two-plus-month absence. Unfortunately for Kershaw, his extraordinary output over a limited number of innings might not be enough for him to garner serious Cy Young consideration. Do you think it should?

Comments

I believe that, should he somehow continue his dominance at the rate prior to his injury and far outperform his competition, he should be the favorite based not on innings but on the distance in his stats from the second place finisher.

The number of innings pitched by relievers and starters for the CY aren’t comparable. The last time a reliever won it was 13 years ago, when Eric Gagne won in 2003. Gagne made 77 appearances that year. Kershaw has only 16 starts,this season and will get 4 more at the most. I don’t think it’s justifiable to vote the CY for Kershaw because he’ll have 140+ IP (maybe) while Gagne had 82 1/3 IP in 2003.

Let me start out by saying I don’t think Kershaw should win based on that argument.

But playing devils advocate…

Until there’s a separate award for starters and relievers, why isn’t it fair to compare? Or if not fair, than how about fun?

Were Gagnes 80ish innings more valuable than Kershaws 130? Not if you believe WAR is accurate. Will Scherzers 220 innings be more valuable than CKs 140? Maybe, but it’ll be close.

Are they only eligible for the award if they each do their job? So a starter has to post triple the quality innings of a reliever because it’s his job to? So even if his 140 innings are worth more than a relievers 80, he can’t win because he didn’t do his job and throw 220?

There’s ~1960 innings a year a team has to play. So the more quality innings you can throw the better.

But that eliminates Kershaw against the other starters which I said I probably agree with. I’m simply stating his 140 innings will always be more valuable than Gagnes or Ecks or Brittons 80 innings. So I think it’s odd to say he can’t win because he’s not a reliever. That’s simply a perception bias.

But of course with most awards voting, perception conquers statistics more than it should.

I like Kershaw, and I’m not a Dodgers fan. But I don’t think he will have the innings to win the Cy Young. I think he’ll get some votes. He’d have to be otherworldly for the rest of the season to win the Cy Young, like tossing no-hitters for the rest of his starts. At the very least, he’d have to throw complete game victories for his remaining starts, if only to make up for innings. It’s possible, but unlikely.

You can’t deny his dominance as Kershaw has clearly continued t0 prove he’s easily one of the best pitcher of his generation. That said his long absence really makes us ask is there a pitcher who deserves it more and it’s hard to say no to Syndergaard or Scherzer. If I was filling out the ballot I’d probably vote Kershaw in second or third just to acknowledge that I think he had a great season but I’d rather other voters make his final case.

They played much better when he was on the dl. He carried them when he was active, but they carried themselves when he was out. I’d say that makes him for that time, not sorely needed. If anything it has to be a confidence booster for the club. Could end up a blessing in disguise, especially if he goes into the postseason ready to put the team on his shoulders (due to the extra rest). But what do I know, I’m not a Dodger fan – although had they gone through and gotten Hamels they’d have gotten pretty much all my favorite players.

Can’t say the dodgers have done all that badly without him- an 11 game swing in the division??? And I would be inclined to go by WAR which gives it to kershaw, but WAR also gives it to kershaw last year and in 2012 and Trout the mvp every full season he’s played so I don’t see the voters giving it to Kershaw. Too three finish for sure.

I think there should have been one or two more options to vote for. I think it’s a big assumption that he’ll pick up right where left off. It isn’t unusual for pitchers to struggle with their timing, mechanics, and getting used to game speed, after missing a chunk of time. If he dominates immediately, and does so to the end of the season, he would definitely deserve CY consideration. But if he struggles at all I think you have to look at others instead.

To me the reason a Cy Young winner must reach a certain number of innings is consistency. Each start a pitcher makes is another opportunity to throw a clunker and any pitcher can fall into a funk and see their rate stats creep up. Kershaw was dominant, but you cannot assume he would pitch at that level for another 90-110 innings. I’d rather give the award to someone who had more opportunities to fail.

Given the lack of any criteria for the voting, each and every sportswriters can apply their own definition of who is “deserving.” In 2012 the sportswriters in their finite wisdom chose for the NL CY someone whose story was better than his pitching performance. So keeping in mind this is a writer’s award, the bias is going to be towards the player with the more appealing narrative. If Kershaw comes back and roars down the stretch and the Dodgers win the division then his story will come to the top of the list no matter how many innings he’s logged. Surely WAR will not figure into it at all.

As a dodger fan I would obviously love to see him win the Cy Young, but he’s been injured far too long and definitely shouldn’t because of the amount of innings he’s pitched. Excited to have him back though!

Would it make a difference if he missed all of April and May then put up these numbers? My guess, he probably wins hands down if that’s the case. So why should it matter if he missed two months in the middle of the season. If he was the best pitcher in the N.L. then he should win. That being said, I think he has enough time to bolster his chances. If he makes all his starts and dominates he probably wins.

Considering Britton has at least some people suggesting he’s a Cy candidate, it’s pretty ludicrous to think Kershaw isn’t when he’ll throw twice as many innings as Britton. So yes, he should get consideration.

Innings are innings, if one guy pitching 70 innings is worthy of Cy consideration, then a guy pitching 150 innings has to be worthy too, regardless of what their job descriptions or expected innings totals are. That’s just an arbitrary point.

I have no problem with people saying Kershaw shouldn’t win over a 200-inning starter, but if people who endorse Britton as a contender turn around and say Kershaw shouldn’t be considered, then it just loses all logic.

If I had a vote, which I don’t, I wouldn’t vote for him. Incredible partial season. We know Kershaw and have all the confidence in the world that he’d have been good the whole time he was out, but he was still out. Other guys weren’t out and performed the whole time.

Try again next year, Clayton… I have little doubt you’ll be in the Cy race again.

So basically this is down to whether his fewer innings or sheer dominance is more important. If he gets hurt again or finishes the season poorly then yeah, give it to someone else. But if he comes back and pitches well for the last month then the fact that this is the best he’s ever pitched and that his K/BB is LITERALLY THE BEST EVER should outweigh his fewer innings.

The innings argument should only really matter for pitchers performing more poorly in their starts so getting taken out earlier in games anyway…